VoIP Fuels Security Appliance Growth: Report

Enterprise voice over IP (VoIP) adoption is fueling a growing and robust security appliance market, as organizations adapt existing security systems to the demands of the new technology according to new research from In-Stat.

According to In-Stat, the security appliance market will grow significantly in the next few years, as companies invest in hardware more suitable to VoIP. The firm reports that more than three-quarters of organizations that have deployed VoIP solutions intend to upgrade their replace their current security appliances within the next twelve months. In-Stat expects security appliance revenues to reach $7 billion by 2009.

"Traditional firewall technologies can complicate several aspects of VoIP, most notably dynamic port trafficking and Network Address Translation (NAT) transversal," In-Stat analyst Victoria Fodale said in a statement. "Security product vendors are adding functions that address voice applications in their products, but, as history has shown, security typically lags behind advances in technology."

Organizations with between 500 and 999 employees are most concerned about VoIP security, but the issue is one that many organizations are eager to deal with. In-Stat found that companies that have already implemented VoIP have significantly higher security appliance budgets than those that have not.